Whole New Meaning To Campus Life

September 05, 1997

This definitely is not your father's dorm room.

There are no cinderblock walls surrounding the students who took up residence this week in the new dormitory of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. There are no creaky metal beds, no pea-green paint, no half-pint refrigerators with barely enough room for an ice tray.

Instead, the shiny new digs offer microwave ovens, 11-foot ceilings, full-size fridges and elegant, stainless-steel beds with brass trim, custom designed by a group of the school's students.

Here's the kicker: Students also get a drop-dead view down State Street--yes, that Great Street--from high above the heart of the Loop. We're talking Marshall Field's, the monster red sign of the Chicago Theater, tiny Christmas lights along the tree-lined boulevard, the whole shebang. It all sort of gives new meaning to living on campus.

The ingenious move by the downtown-based School of the Art Institute to expand its student housing by 200 units into the national landmark Chicago Building at State and Madison Streets also helps give new definition to life in the Loop.

The 15-story building, built in 1904 by noted Chicago architects William Holabird and Martin Roche, is the first office structure in the Loop to be converted to residential use. At least seven other such projects are under way, according to city planning officials. That's great news.

It's easy to see the benefits of this growing trend to re-use nearly vacant buildings left from an oversaturated commercial office market. Even living on modest budgets, the art students will bring after-hours vitality to the area, whether by patronizing nearby sandwich shops for dinner or studying on the Daley Center plaza after the business-attired regulars have gone home.

Loop planners should seize the moment and accompany these residential projects with more "pocket" parks, grocery stores and other small businesses that cater to a residential market. Chicago will benefit from more after-hours life in the Loop.